Mueller just requested new documents from the DOJ that could spell trouble for Trump and Sessions

The special counsel Robert Mueller has requested
documents from the Justice Department related to the firing of
James Comey as FBI director and Attorney General Jeff Sessions'
recusal from matters involving the Russia
investigation.

The documents could help Mueller determine whether
President Donald Trump tried to obstruct justice when he fired
Comey in May.

Comey was leading the FBI's investigation into Russia's
interference in the 2016 US election and whether the Trump
campaign colluded with Moscow to influence the
outcome.

The special counsel Robert Mueller has asked the Justice
Department to hand over thousands of documents related to the
firing of James Comey as FBI director, including any
communications between the White House and the department around
the time that Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from
the investigation into Russia's election interference.

The request for emails between the White House and the DOJ
related to Sessions' recusal could help Mueller determine why
Trump has expressed anger at Sessions relinquishing control over
the campaign-related investigations to Deputy Attorney General
Rod Rosenstein in March.

Sessions recused himself after it was revealed that he had failed
to disclose that he had at least two meetings with Russia's
ambassador to the US during the campaign.

"Earlier reports indicated that Trump exploded when he found out
about his recusal," said Renato Mariotti, a former federal
prosecutor. "That could be evidence of his state of mind because
it is a highly unusual reaction to a recusal decision."

William Yeomans, a former deputy assistant attorney general who
spent 26 years at the Justice Department, said in an email that
"hanging over" the decision to fire Comey were "questions of the
propriety of Sessions' participation, given his recusal from the
Russia investigation and Trump's later statements that he was
thinking of Russia" when he fired the FBI director.

"This episode also highlights Rosenstein's difficult position,"
Yeomans said. "He continues to supervise an investigation in
which he appears to be (though we don't know for sure) an
increasingly significant witness."

Trump told The New York Times in July that "Sessions should have
never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he
should've told me before he took the job so I could choose
someone else."

About a week later, he called Sessions "beleaguered" and asked
why the Justice Department and Congress weren't investigating
"Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations." The next day,
Trump tweeted that Sessions had taken "a VERY weak position" on
what Trump characterized as Hillary Clinton's "crimes" and on
"leaks" from the intelligence community.

Andy Wright, a former associate counsel to President Barack Obama
and Vice President Al Gore, said the request "could also be a
sign that Mueller is trying to understand Attorney General
Sessions' contacts with Russia, his candor in his security
clearance forms and before Congress, and the facts requiring his
recusal."

'Sessions and Rosenstein at the core of the obstruction inquiry'

Mueller has since at least June been investigating whether Trump
tried to obstruct justice.

He has interviewed or is preparing to speak with some of Trump's
closest aides as part of that inquiry, including the White House
communications director, Hope Hicks, and the former press
secretary Sean Spicer. Mueller's team is set to interview Don
McGahn, the White House counsel, in the coming weeks.

According to the White House special counsel Ty Cobb, Trump
decided he wanted Comey gone shortly after the FBI director
testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 3.

Comey reiterated during that public appearance that some of
Trump's associates were still under investigation, and he said it
made him "mildly nauseous" to think that his handling of the
investigation into Clinton's use of private email while she was
secretary of state "might have had some impact on the election."

Reports have suggested that Trump was annoyed with Comey for
implying that the election was somehow swayed by the director's
controversial
decision to tell Congress that he was reexamining Clinton's
emails 11 days before the election.

Additionally, Comey did not allow the White House to review his
testimony beforehand, which Trump and his aides considered "an
act of insubordination," according to
Reuters. The Times
echoed that report, saying Trump was broadly irked by his
inability to gain assurances of loyalty from Comey.

As such, Trump wrote a letter with one of his top policy
advisers, Stephen Miller, outlining why he thought Comey was
unfit to lead the FBI and expressing frustration with the fact
that Comey would not confirm publicly that Trump was not under
investigation.

The letter was sent to the DOJ after some heavy editing by
McGahn, according to The Times. Sessions and Rosenstein met with
Trump shortly thereafter and wrote memos arguing that Comey
should be fired.

"The sequence of events in which Sessions and Rosenstein met with
Trump and the next day transmitted Rosenstein's memo to the White
House shortly before Trump fired Comey, allegedly for the reasons
stated in Rosenstein's memo, places Sessions and Rosenstein at
the core of the obstruction inquiry," Yeomans said.

"It will be important to know what communications occurred within
DOJ and between DOJ and the WH before the White House meeting,
immediately after the WH meeting, after transmission of the memo
and before Comey's firing, and after Comey's firing."

'Letting Flynn go'

The day after Comey's dismissal, Trump told two Russian diplomats
in an Oval Office meeting that by firing Comey, whom he
reportedly called a "nut job," he had taken "great pressure" off
himself,
according to The Times. Days later, he told NBC's Lester Holt
that "the Russia thing" had been on his mind when he dismissed
the FBI director.

Those comments — combined with a one-on-one meeting in February
in which, Comey testified, Trump sought to have the FBI consider
dropping its investigation into the former national security
adviser Michael Flynn — have led lawmakers, legal experts, and
now Mueller to examine
whether Trump sought to obstruct justice, a criminal and
impeachable offense.

Also of interest to Mueller, according to The Washington Post,
are requests Trump made in late March to the director of national
intelligence, Daniel Coats, and the chief of the National
Security Agency, Mike Rogers. Trump reportedly asked Coats on
March 22, with CIA Director Mike Pompeo still in the room,
whether there was a way to get Comey to back off the FBI's Flynn
investigation.

Soon afterward, The Post said, Trump called Rogers and Coats to
ask whether they could make public statements denying that the
Trump campaign had colluded with Russia during the campaign.
Mueller interviewed Coats and Rogers about those interactions in
mid-June.

Comey testified in June that in February, a day after Flynn
resigned, Trump asked everyone to leave the room before he
expressed "hope" that the FBI could see a way clear to "letting
Flynn go."

Comey said he found Trump's emptying of the room before he made
the request "significant" and took the comment as a "direction."

Comey also testified that Trump asked him to publicly announce
that Trump was not under investigation and that Trump asked for
loyalty during a dinner in late January. Comey told Congress that
Trump seemed to be implying that he would fire him if he did not
pledge loyalty but that Comey ultimately promised the president
"honesty" instead.

Obstruction of justice is broadly
defined: It involves any conduct in which a person willfully
interferes with the administration of justice. To charge someone
with obstructing justice, however, prosecutors have to prove that
"the defendant corruptly endeavored to influence, obstruct, or
impede" an investigation, according to legal and national
security experts at the website Lawfare. That element, they said,
"is the hardest to prove, because it depends on showing an
improper motive."